Dan Hodges is a former Labour Party and GMB trade union official, and has managed numerous independent political campaigns. He writes about Labour with tribal loyalty and without reservation. You can read Dan's recent work here

Iran: Why we need a Start the War coalition

He really wants the bomb. What are we going to do about it? (Photo: AP)

The Stop the War campaign is gaining momentum. Tonight those jihadists of peace, George Galloway, Tony Benn and Lindsay German, launch their latest bid to stay the hand of the warmongers threatening the Islamic Republic of Iran. Their public meeting, “Don’t attack Iran”, starts at 7 pm in Red Lion Square. It’s the future of mankind we’re talking about, so please don’t be late.

Of course not everyone will be able to make it. David Miliband has a prior engagement. So does Meir Dagan, the former head of the Israeli intelligence service, Mossad. But over the past week both have, in their own ways, sent their apologies.

Last Tuesday, Dagan told Israeli TV an attack on Iran risks the start of a devastating regional conflict. Then on Thursday Britain’s former foreign secretary penned an article in the Financial Times warning of the “risk of sleepwalking into a war”. “Nature abhors a vacuum”, he said, “and so does international politics. It cannot be filled by nudges and winks about military options. A concerted diplomatic effort on Iran is needed now to prevent the world sleepwalking into another war in the Middle East.”

When it comes to opposing military intervention, neither Dagan nor Miliband could be described as the usual suspects. In fact, they’ve never so much as had their fingerprints taken. A willingness to bomb people formed an important part of Dagan’s former job description. And David Miliband’s support of the invasion of Iraq, a vote which went some way to costing him this leadership of his party, showed that politically he’s only too happy to place his boots on the ground.

That is why both men’s interventions are significant. Not only because of what they contribute to the debate on how to deal with the Iranian nuclear threat. But also for what they tell us about where the balance of that debate currently rests. And not to put to fine a point on it, the pacifist doves are currently giving the interventionist hawks are right good kicking.

A couple of weeks ago my former New Statesman colleague Mehdi Hasan wrote a piece in the Guardian arguing that “If you lived in Iran wouldn’t you want the bomb?” The premise of his article was that Iran, surrounded on all sides by US imperialist lackeys, renegade nuclear states and Jericho-packing Zionists, would be a couple of sandwiches short of a picnic if it didn’t try to acquire its own bomb. “If you were our mullah in Tehran, wouldn't you want Iran to have the bomb – or at the very minimum, "nuclear latency" (that is, the capability and technology to quickly build a nuclear weapon if threatened with attack)?” he argued.

The piece caused quite a storm, not least for its controversial statement that nearly one in three ordinary Iranians want an independent nuclear capability. For a moment it looked as if the interventionists were finally getting their act together. And then Mehdi received support from an unexpected quarter. “If I were Iranian, I'd probably want nuclear weapons", Israeli defence minister Ehud Barak told PBS television. With friends like that, those arguing the case for a robust response to the Iranian nuclear threat hardly need to worry about George Galloway.

But just because the anti-war coalition are gaining some significant converts, and winning the PR war, does it mean they’re right? No. It doesn’t.

Let’s put aside for a moment the current Iranian president is a Holocaust denier who has called for the “occupying regime” of Israel to be “wiped off the map”. Let’s also park the fact that since 2006 the United Nations has passed no less than seven resolutions against Iran, the most recent in June of this year – resolution 1984 – which clearly calls on all member states to “cooperate fully with the sanctions imposed on Iran over concern about the nature of its nuclear activities”.

Instead, let’s ask ourselves what the practical implications would be if the Stop the War coalition won. If David Cameron and Barack Obama and Ban Ki-moon stood up in unison and said, “under no circumstances will we attack Iran”. The sabres were sheathed. The nudges and winks ceased. The Iranians were formally informed that whatever machines of infernal damnation they chose to construct, the could do so free from any risk of a military response.

The world would be safer? The middle east more stable? The families of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv able to sleep more soundly in their beds?

Syria does not to me seem a more tranquil place now we know the world has no intention of intervening to halt the internal repression that has so far lead to the deaths of 4,000 people. Nor, in fact, does the world’s muted response to the brutal crackdown following the 2009-2010 Iranian presidential elections appear to have encouraged liberalisation of that regime.

The military option is always a terrible one. But to remove it unilaterally from the table will not reduce the danger we face. It will increase it.

The Stop the War coalition is winning. We need a Start the War coalition. Peace demands it.